The present invention relates to a method and system for operating a navigation system, and more particularly to a method and system for operating a navigation system to report the effects of updated portions of a geographic database.
Navigation systems are available that provide end users with various navigation-related functions and features. For example, some navigation systems are able to determine an optimum route to travel along a road network from an origin location to a destination location in a geographic region. Using input from the end user, and optionally from equipment that can determine the end user's location (such as a GPS system), the navigation system can examine various potential routes between the origin and destination locations to determine the optimum route. The navigation system may then provide the end user with information about the optimum route in the form of guidance that identifies the driving maneuvers required to be taken by the end user to travel from the origin to the destination location. The guidance may take the form of visual and/or audio instructions that are provided along the way as the end user is traveling the route. Some navigation systems are able to show detailed maps on displays outlining the route, the types of maneuvers to be taken at various locations along the route, locations of certain types of features, and so on.
In order to provide these and other navigation-related functions and features, navigation systems use geographic data. The geographic data may be in the form of one or more geographic databases that include data representing physical features in the geographic region. The geographic database includes information about the represented geographic features, such as one-way streets, position of the roads, speed limits along portions of roads, address ranges along the road portions, turn restrictions at intersections of roads, direction restrictions, such as one-way streets, and so on. Additionally, the geographic data may include points of interests, such as businesses, facilities, restaurants, hotels, airports, gas stations, stadiums, police stations, and so on.
Although navigation systems provide many important features, there continues to be room for new features and improvements. There is a need to gather and organize comprehensive, detailed, reliable, and up-to-date data about geographic regions. There is also a need to update the geographic data. Just like conventional printed maps, geographic data used in computer-based navigation systems can become out-of-date. For example, new roads are built, businesses change locations, road construction closes roads, detours are established, museum and restaurant hours change, and so on. Additionally, the accuracy of the geographic data may improve due to improved data collection techniques.
In one known system, updated versions of geographical information are released on a periodic basis. In this known system, a user who wants to update his or her geographic database is required to replace his or her entire previous geographic database with a new version. This can be burdensome and time consuming because of the large amount of data involved, much of which is identical to the data in the user's previous version of the geographic database. Furthermore, in such a system, new releases of geographic data may be made on a fixed periodic schedule (e.g., every several months such as every three months). Thus, a user's geographic database has the potential for being out-of-date thereby decreasing its usefulness.
In another system, rather than replacing the entire previous geographic database with a new version, a portion of the previous geographic database is replaced or modified to reflect updated geographic data. One downside of updating a portion of the geographic data is the effects of the partially updated geographic data may have on the navigation-related functions and features. Accordingly, a method and system are desired that would identify whether the navigation-related feature uses a combination of previously released geographic data and updated geographic data. Further, there is a need for reporting to the user of the navigation system the effects on the navigation-related functions and features due to the partially updated geographic database.